City on Fire (Danny Ryan, #1)(73)

“That’s what I mean,” Paulie says. “Everyone hears. And how is that going to play in Peoria?”

“What?”

“It’s an expression,” Paulie says. “Like, what are people going to think. ‘How is that going to play in Peoria?’”

“Where the fuck is Peoria?”

“I dunno,” Paulie says. “The fuck difference does it make?”

“Because why the fuck would we care what people there think?” Peter asks.

“We don’t.”

“Then why . . .” Peter gives up.

“We care,” Chris says, his head starting to throb, “about what certain people in Boston think. About what people in New York think. That we have a gay captain in our family, that we can’t finish off a bunch of micks, and that now even the ditsoon are giving us the finger.”

Maintaining a separate family in tiny Rhode Island has always been a problem, Chris knows. Stuck between Boston and New York, both of whom would like to take over and make us just a crew, the Rhode Island family has always had to be tougher, stricter, more violent. If the guys in Boston or New York think we’re weak, they’ll be looking to take advantage.

This war trying to take a little turf from the Irish is going to cost us our whole thing.

“So what do you want to do?” Peter asks.

“Sal has to take Marvin out—”

“On a date?” Paulie asks.

“Yeah, funny, Paulie,” Chris says. “Then we’ll see what we have to do about Sal.”

“What do you mean?” Paulie asks. “He’s a fag.”

“Marvin says he is,” Chris says. “If Marvin is gone, he don’t say it no more. Frankie V says it, so . . .”

“So you’re saying we should whack Frankie to cover up for Sal.”

“I’m asking,” Chris says, “who’s more valuable. Who’s the better soldier? Who’s the bigger earner?”

“Who’s the finook?” Paulie asks.

Jesus God, he’s stupid, Chris thinks.

Peter gets it, though. He understands it’s the image that matters, not the reality. “So you think we should give Sal the green light on Frankie.”

Chris shrugs. “What would you do to a guy who goes around saying you’re gay?”

Peter mimes squeezing a trigger.

Chris shrugs again.

“But Sal is a fag,” Paulie says.

“So fucking what?” Chris says.

“You kidding me?” Paulie asks. “What they do is disgusting. Makes me want to puke.”

“You telling me you never fucked a woman in the ass?” Chris says.

“That’s different.”

“How?”

“It was a woman,” Paulie says.

Peter says, “Let’s wait. See if Sal handles our Marvin problem. Then we’ll decide what to do.”

Classic Peter, Chris thinks, kicking the can down the road. But it does make a certain kind of sense—if Marvin kills Sal, we won’t have to choose between him and Frankie V.

Paulie takes a piece of the fudge.

“The fuck,” Peter says.

“What?”

“You gonna eat that?”

“Why not?” Paulie says, shoving it into his mouth. “It’s good.”



Behind the wheel of a boosted Caddy, Sal can see the playground from a block away.

Moolies in their hooded sweatshirts jumping up and down. Problem is picking out which one is Marvin. As he pulls up alongside the court, he remembers that Marvin is the one who doesn’t suck.

Then he sees a guy in a gray PC hoodie do a cross-over dribble that about breaks his defender’s ankles and go up for a slam dunk.

Marvin.

Sal rolls down his window.



Marvin feels him.

Then hangs on the rim and sees him.

Demetrius yells, “Gun!”

Marvin lets go of the rim, as he drops pulls his pistol taped inside the kangaroo pouch on the sweaty and fires.

Then something punches him in the chest.

He’s dead before he hits the ground.



Sal drives three blocks before he realizes he’s been shot.

The fuckin’ monkey hit him in the arm.

The adrenaline masks the pain but he’s bleeding like crazy and has to get it taken care of quick. But he can’t go to the hospital that’s two minutes away because if he walks into the E-room with a bullet wound, they call the cops. He drops the gun out the window and then pulls out on Route 95 and drives north. A doctor in Pawtucket is behind in his payments.

Maybe he can make it there before he bleeds out.



Danny sits in the waiting room.

Doctors’ waiting rooms are purgatory, he thinks. An endless wait for salvation that may or may not come. The torture of hope—you hope it’s not a tumor, you hope if it is, it’s benign, you hope . . .

Even the name on the door is scary.

Oncologist.

Their GP sent them there. Said this guy was good.

What’s that even mean, Danny asks himself as he pages through a well-thumbed copy of Good Housekeeping. All the magazines in there are women’s magazines. Of course they are, the people are here for breast cancer, idiot.